


This Exercise of Trust

by knight_tracer, lady_ragnell



Series: Rebuild When I Break Down [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Communication, F/M, Gen, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: Padmé has some worries about Anakin, and asks Obi-Wan to help her make sure they won't come true.





	This Exercise of Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art by reena_jenkins

**Podfic Length:** 8:23

 **Streaming:** [Click](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/01%20This%20Exercise%20of%20Trust.mp3)

 **Download Links:** [mp3](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/01%20This%20Exercise%20of%20Trust.mp3) | [m4b](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/01%20This%20Exercise%20of%20Trust.m4b)

Obi-Wan arrives less than an hour after Padmé sends him a message asking if he's willing to see her before he his next assignment in the fight against the Separatists.

She's changed her mind a hundred times since sending it. Anakin won't thank her for involving his old teacher in his nighttime fears, the ones she can't convince him are only fears and not visions. Besides that, Obi-Wan is tired, and busy. She should give him warm wishes for his coming journey and send him away again unburdened by her worries.

“Senator,” he says when he arrives, wary as the doors shut behind him. “I wasn't expecting to hear from you before I continued my search for the General.”

“And I don't mean to pull you away from your search, General.” There's a hint of irony in his expression when she uses his title, the one that mirrors Grievous's, rather than calling him Master Kenobi. “I'm afraid it's a personal matter.”

Obi-Wan doesn't flinch, or look away, or seem in any way surprised. “Shall we sit?”

Padmé must look as tired as Anakin does, after sitting up with him all night, worrying for him and for the baby. “It's about Anakin.”

“I know.” Of course it is. They've loved him from the beginning, been willing to take chances for him and defend him when others speak against him. Obi-Wan must know what she and Anakin are to each other, and she knows that her glib words to Senate colleagues about wanting to be a mother without needing a father to help are an illusion to him, as much as they sometimes feel like a cruel reality to her, with Anakin always off at one battle or another and their marriage a secret, probably forever.

“He has dreams. He calls them visions.” That straightens Obi-Wan's spine. “He sees me dying.” She puts her hand over her stomach, a gesture that's become more and more comforting as the child starts moving more. “Giving birth to the baby. He says he'll protect me, but I want to know if it's true, or if it's his worries.”

Obi-Wan loves the Jedi, and he loves their Code. Because he loves Anakin and cares for Padmé, he's never tried to preach on the Code to them, but she worries about what he's thinking, as he digests that. “Anakin ...”

Padmé can fill in the end of that. Anakin has been strange since he returned from the battle over Coruscant, spending time with Palpatine when he's never had interest in politics before and still has little interest in hers. He's chafing at not being allowed the title of Jedi Master despite his power. He's waking in the night, worrying for her and trying to comfort her when he's the one who needs it. “Can he truly see the future?”

“Some Jedi can, and he's strong in the Force. And he's seen it before, I believe, though few others on the Council do.” There must be something on her face or in the Force that he can read, because he reaches out. “The Force shows things that can be changed. Why show something already set in stone?”

“What would it take to change this? He's said he'll do anything, and he … he's seemed so angry, lately.” Padmé is no Jedi, and doesn't know what it looks like when one turns to the Dark, but the part of her that's a politician knows how to recognize a man willing to reach beyond the law in desperation, and the part of her that's a wife knows something is terribly wrong with her husband.

“I'll do my best to help, if he'll let me. And if you'll allow me. There are Force healers, people we could speak to to make sure there aren't medical reasons for these visions.”

Padmé raises her chin. “Thank you for that, and he has no say in whose help I allow for myself. I'm mostly worried about him, and there he may reject your help. Something is making me uneasy, and he talks too much about being powerful enough to protect me.”

“If he's turning, we can do our best,” Obi-Wan promises, cutting to the heart of her fears. He doesn't dismiss them, as she'd almost wished he would. “I think there's still time. I'm being sent away on a vital mission, but perhaps if I bring him with me, it will help.”

“Keep him away from Palpatine, if you can. There's something about that I don't like.”

He nods, measured, and for a moment, she thinks that's the end of it until he looks away and takes a sharp breath. “Senator—Padmé. When the Force grants visions, it grants visions of things that the one having them can change, or visions of something that will happen if they make the wrong choice. The harder he tries to keep it from happening ...”

“It won't come to that.” It sounds like a foolish child's wish, and Padmé has never been a foolish child. She straightens her spine. “We won't let it.”

“The Dark is persuasive, and Anakin has always given in to his emotions.”

Padmé knows that, just as she's always known that it could be a strength, not a weakness, if the Jedi would only let it be. She knows little about the Force, but she sees those cracks, the same way Obi-Wan sees the cracks in the Republic that have allowed the Separatists to gain ground. “You sound like you've already given up hope.”

“It's too easy to. But I won't give up on Anakin.”

“I know you won't. You're the only person who loves him as much as I do.”

Obi-Wan is the perfect Jedi, in many ways, an example for the Order, and here she sits, accusing him of attachment, of being something more than Anakin's mentor and colleague. She waits for the reaction, waits to see if he denies it, but he doesn't. The war against the Separatists has worn away some of that perfection and reminded him that he's a human as much as he's a Jedi. “I am.”

“Then we'll fix this. For him.”

“And for you,” Obi-Wan reminds her, gentle. They've always had a quieter connection than Anakin's with either of them, but she still trusts him beyond almost anyone else, and she thinks that her trust is in some measure returned. “And for the child.”

Padmé nods, comforted, and doesn't say that it will be for him, too. He wouldn't accept that, even if they both know that he would be wrecked if Anakin truly turned from the Light, as much as she would be. “We'll tell Anakin that we're going to help him fix it, change it, and we'll do it. Whatever he's seen, we'll change it.”

Obi-Wan reaches out to clasp her hand. “I know we will,” he says, grave as ever, and Padmé won't ever make that trust misplaced, so she knows they'll do it.


End file.
